A weekend of D&D

[Lost Soul]

Well, it looks like the band of brothers and I are going to do some really adolescent stuff. 6 guys, one chalet, one weekend, beer, and D&D.

Which means I get to plan my first big-ass adventure in years.

Quick background: the party is basically the herald of the would-be goddess of pain.

Quick story: they're at the entrance of a huge ruined structure that's filled with various monsters, which are considered to be gods by the nomadic tribes that live in the area around the structure. They're not gods, though, just badass beasties (CR14 should be the top)

In the structure there's the Pool of Anointment, an artefact that serves to establish a link between a person and his god (in game terms, this'll give the players access to some prestige classes)

Heroes wanna go there.

Any suggestions what else is in the Megapolis?

[Hitcher]

Any suggestions what else is in the Megapolis?
A merchant who will sell anything to anyone - lots of charisma, but really shoddy stuff. If he gets captured by a band of goblins, before anyone can do anything he's walking out of their camp with all their money while they're fighting over some rusty swords.

[Origen]

Any suggestions what else is in the Megapolis?

What will be the composition of the party?

For beasties, I'd look at the various totems that might be worshipped by a barbarian, nomadic tribe for monsters or gods:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#barbarianVariantTotemB arbarian

A huge, constricting snake; an uber-advanced dire ape with levels of barbarian and frenzied berserker.

These are a few of my favorite things!

[David Argall]

A huge, constricting snake; an uber-advanced dire ape with levels of barbarian and frenzied berserker.


Oh, we take those two on at the same time.

Make party archer improved invis. rest of party "flees" out of sight.

Archer now shoots ape for maybe 50 points = making it frenzy.

Frenzied ape only sees snake, and so attacks it.

Archer backs into corner and breaks out a deck of cards

Party comes back in a few rounds and kills the survivor.

"Now where's a tough encounter?"

[This sort of thing is why FB is banned in Lg.]

[silverwhisper]

as origen asked, what is the party composition? also, what's the group play style--how much combat vs puzzle solving vs NPC interaction works for the guys?

[Origen]

Oh, we take those two on at the same time.

Make party archer improved invis. rest of party "flees" out of sight.

Archer now shoots ape for maybe 50 points = making it frenzy.

Frenzied ape only sees snake, and so attacks it.

Archer backs into corner and breaks out a deck of cards

Party comes back in a few rounds and kills the survivor.

"Now where's a tough encounter?"

[This sort of thing is why FB is banned in Lg.]

Well, thank you for the commentary, Mr. Metagamer, but not all of us play in groups where the DM explains the encounter beforehand. Not only did I NOT say the two encounters would be in the same room, but how exactly would your archer know to shoot the Frenzied Berserker and wait for the "frenzy" to run out? For a high-level encounter, I'd provide at least one or two means of twarting invisibility (at the least, Scent on the ape), and while your party retreated, I'd be dry-humping the archer over in the corner - it's so cool when they're invisible, because you can see yourself inside them! - and smoking a cigarette ready to rage when your party came back.

And if that's your limp-wristed idea of powergaming, you can put that little one-inch pee pee back in your pants.

The last epic game I played in involved dealing out 12,000 points of damage in a round from spells, and about 6,000 points of damage from melee from two characters in one round. That's without buffs.

I know how to build a high-level encounter, which is why I asked about party composition. I also need to know which books he's using, and what books players are drawing resources from. A core-only game is going to look a lot different from a game involving sources A, B and C.

I'd love to see you actually design something, David, instead of commenting on other people's work.

If you can, that is. Which I doubt.

You're just a Monday morning quarterback.

[Mouser]

Don't hold back, Org.

Tell him how you REALLY feel.

:D

[Origen]

Don't hold back, Org.

Tell him how you REALLY feel.

:D

Well, it's not like the guy has anything to add to ANY subject he ever talks about except vainly attempting to act like he's nitpicking. I've watched the guy do this for years - literally - and churn out a tsunami of fruitless bickering without ever producing one actual thought of his own. He can't even talk about D&D without talking about how they doing things in Living Greyhawk, because God forbid he actually THINK about the game instead of letting someone else do the thinking for him. I swear to God the man knows how to say nothing for longer than anyone I've ever encountered online.

[Lost Soul]

Monster Manual 1 and 2, PHB and DMG. Well, I have the epic level handbook too, but... :P

The party (all level 9 with non-uber builds):

Dwarven barbarian (typical main battle tank)
Human druid
Human sorcerer (spell selection is half evocation, quarter buff, quarter combat utility with a couple of pure utility spells)
Human wizard (spell selection is mostly combat stuff, with the staple adventuring spells (fly, invisibility, etc.)
Human bard (3.0, too. :laughing: )

The party is weak on rules, but strong on on-the-fly tactics (guess they're used to the DM throwing them curve balls.) What they're really not good at is preparation and defense. Save or die spells are going to be very bad on them - their weak saves are usually as weak as they can be, as they're mostly relying on their stats to save them (and on some cloaks of resistance +1.)

I'm planning to remedy that in the first half of the adventure: I'll give them some arcane scrolls (so the wizard can pick up a few defensive spells), a nearly drained wand of raise dead (I'd prefer scrolls, but since the party's only way to use raise dead is via Use Magic Device, raise dead is nearly impossible to cast from a scroll), and I'll patch up the most glaring holes in their defense. That is, if they perform well. :)

On the other hand, they're roughly on par with their expected wealth, and it's mostly in offensive stuff. The barbarian has a shocking keen dwarven waraxe, for instance.

[Origen]

Wands can only hold a 4th level spell, incidentally.

[SD Anderson]

Well, it looks like the band of brothers and I are going to do some really adolescent stuff. 6 guys, one chalet, one weekend, beer, and D&D.

Which means I get to plan my first big-ass adventure in years.

Quick background: the party is basically the herald of the would-be goddess of pain.

Quick story: they're at the entrance of a huge ruined structure that's filled with various monsters, which are considered to be gods by the nomadic tribes that live in the area around the structure. They're not gods, though, just badass beasties (CR14 should be the top)

In the structure there's the Pool of Anointment, an artefact that serves to establish a link between a person and his god (in game terms, this'll give the players access to some prestige classes)

Heroes wanna go there.

Any suggestions what else is in the Megapolis?
Based on the other thread... a set of blue rints to turn two casks of unending water into a limitless fuel jet packs.

A n almost enchanted wand of wonder. (Just add two droops of special oil and fit the square peg into that round depression. ;)

(What's scary is the square peg actually pops into it with ease...)
The ruins of an Elixirium allchemists shop) something there went bad and then Kaboomed!

However a programmed illusion of the Alchemist appears periodically to sing of the wares and wonders inside the shop.


;b]Potions and powders and philters, elixirs
Distilled in kettles and mixed in clean beakers
with dragon lymph gland and gryphon grey hairs
These are a few of my favorite wares
[/b]

)Apoloies to Rogers and Hammerstein)

If you want to make the Players paranoid describe a wall across the street from the Elixirium. It's burnt, blackened thoughly except for three sihilouettes in lighter shades of incineration.

Two girls playing ball. The ball is in mid air. If the players start looking for magic equivalents of geiger counters, let them.

[Lost Soul]

Wands can only hold a 4th level spell, incidentally.

Damn. Forgot about that. Back to scrolls then.

Just to see if I understand UMD properly.

Step 1: Decipher the scroll: DC would be 25+5 (30) - but this can be bypassed by Read Magic.

Step 2: Emulate spell ability: The effective DC would be 29 (since he needs a caster level of 9 to be able to cast a level 5 spell from a scroll)

Step 3: Emulate an ability score (Wisdom 15) which means an effective DC of 30.

So... the bard has 13 ranks in UMD, +4 Charisma bonus, and the +2 synergy bonus from 5 ranks of Decipher script.

That means (assuming the scroll is deciphered), that he needs a 10 and an 11 respectively to activate the scroll. He's got a level to go up, so maybe I could nudge him into getting to five ranks of spellcraft for another +2 synergy bonus.

In that case, the player would need an 8 and a 9 - slightly better than 25% odds. But he can't fail by 10 or more, so there's no chance of mishap. So retries are possible unless the player rolls a 1 - then he has to wait a day. If the math is right, I can live with that: I don't have to seed the dungeon with those scrolls, but the roll is still pleasantly stressful.

[Cranky Dog]

Wands can only hold a 4th level spell, incidentally.

Damn. Forgot about that. Back to scrolls then.
Call it a staff originally sized for a pixie and you're back in business. ;)


Cranky Dog
"I have a size category opinion, international!"